Reindeer Games - A simple treasure hunt
This is a look back on Reindeer Games, one of the Boundless Projects.
One of the primary challenges of mixed reality story telling that I’d like to explore involves creating thematic and intuitive ways of moving the audience through real world environments from one scene to the next. Imagine crafting a ghost tour for your towns historic district. Moving people from scene to scene could be as simple as placing pins on a google map, but that lacks drama and detracts from the experience. Wouldn’t it be better, if the sound of screams pulled the audience in the right direction? Or a scattering flock of bats leaving a bell tower? We are still a way off from that kind of mixed reality, but we can do something better than pins on a map.
To explore this, I built a simple treasure hunt for my friend’s kids that can be produced and solved using just the web browser on your phone. Check it out here.
Lessons Learned
I am still flabbergasted at the latent talent that can be found on sites like Fiverr and Upwork. Artwork, writing, coding, most of the real magic was done by people I found on these services.
Browser based GPS features are pretty inconsistent and often inaccurate. I may take another stab at this game next winter but as an iOS app only.
Hearing the thematic music change as we got closer to the treasures is pretty cool.
AR is much further along than I had realized before starting this project. Stay tuned for more posts on this subject!
